Vinyl ethers containing fluorine are of particular interest in coatings applications because they form polymers and copolymers that exhibit beneficial properties, including high chemical and thermal resistance, high electrical resistivity, low surface energy and low refractive index. These properties can be imparted to a coating surface and, consequently, fluorinated vinyl ethers are particularly useful in making protective release coatings, as well as, surfactants, anticorrosion agents, antioxidizing agents and the like.
Moreover, vinyl ether monomers or copolymers that can be cured via ultraviolet (UV) radiation offer even more advantages in coatings and other applications. Photocuring technology has grown rapidly within the last decade. The photocuring process involves the radiation induced polymerization or cross linking of monomers into a three dimensional network and has a number of advantages including the environmentally safe, solvent-free 100% conversion to a desired product, as well as short cycle times and limited space and capital equipment requirements.
In the telecommunications industry, for example, there is a need to develop photocurable compositions for optical wave guide and interconnect applications. In order to be useful in these applications, the photocurable compositions must polymerize to form polymers that are highly transparent at the working wavelength and possess low intrinsic absorption and scattering loss.
Unfortunately, in the near-infrared region, between 1330 and 1550 nm, many polymers formed from photocurable materials possess neither the required transparency nor low intrinsic absorption loss. There remains a need for new monomers that polymerize to form infrared-transparent polymers with low intrinsic absorption loss.